The long slow decline of Alberta has begun

I'm a born and raised Albertan. I love this province and I'm proud of it's natural features. Having said that, I was shocked to see a recent article in the Edmonton Journal about how Alberta has started importing natural gas from the United States: Scarcity drives deal for imports

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Conrad said... (July 23rd, 2010)

Crazy.

It seems that they're looking to the oilsands to compensate now that the easier-to-get stuff is running low. From the article:

"Oilsands ethane hasn't taken off so far because it's more expensive than traditional sources."

The low hanging fruit appears to already have been picked.

It's also extremely frustrating that Stockwell Day's 1999 flat tax reduced our take from the last ten years of largely natural gas-fuelled boom by billions and billions. You can`t tell me that the the boom wouldn`t have happened if the richer folks had paid a few percent more in taxes. We didn`t benefit as much as we should have from the one time geological gift of natural gas.

But hey, lots of rich Albertans paid lower taxes on their 2nd and 3rd mils! Imagine how hard it would have been for them to buy their Okanagan lake lots without that flat tax!